Personal rant---tailgaters when towing trailer...good grief...

[3930dave]

For the fans of tapping the brakes - best done with a brake controller switch. Without a trailer attached, the vehicle brake lights should come on but you aren't actually slowing down.

IMO, tapping the brakes relies too much on people paying attention/being awake.

With a trailer attached - if you are hauling empty, and feel like slamming the brake controller on - well, that might even wake up a tailgater who's used to ABS !

Rgds, D.

 

[Ken]

One place you better not be tailgateing is Shoshoni Wyoming. This towns cops are reknown for speed traps and everyone locally knows to slow to the speed limit(25) and not one MPH faster or its ticket time. I got stopped for tailgating going thru there once. I was following a car at the required 25 MPH at about 3 car length back when this idiot in front sees the cop and slams on his breaks even though he is not speeding. Well I run up pretty close to him before I can slow down and the cop stops me. I am driving an out of town licensed company truck and of course everyone on the job wants to know what happened the next day. She tells me I am following too close and I give her a small piece of my mind about her speed trap and how she is the cause of the following too close since the guy slammed on his brakes for no reason. She still take all my license and registration which lucky for me were up to date on the company truck. She keeps me there for a good 20 minutes and all the time I was thinking I will go to court on this as I am not paying this ticket. Finally another cop car pull up behind her and they talk for a few minutes and then she comes back, hands me my documents and says her supervisor told her to let me go. I was travelling all of 15 MPH when we went by her so I was thinking that I was going to fight it in court by saying that I was 20+ feet behind the lead vehicle. Anyway, I had to tell the story about 50 times the next day including telling it to the Project Manager who was cool with it anyway as he knew how those locals were. The town makes its living off transient traffic as there is nothing there but a few run down houses and a new gas station. Those type towns are the worst.
Back to the rant.

So they got you also. same town simular traffic wonder if there wasn't a plan on the slow driver.
Only I paid the fine to keep a appointment farther down the road.

Bismark srill dry as Clinton?
ken

 

[Gary Fowler]

So they got you also. same town simular traffic wonder if there wasn't a plan on the slow driver.
Only I paid the fine to keep a appointment farther down the road.

Bismark srill dry as Clinton?
ken

You bet, but Arkadelphia is wet now and a new package store opened up just south of Lake Degray so if a fellow gets thirsty he no longer has to drive to Hot Springs.
I guess I was lucky that the woman cops supervisor came by and told her how stupid she was for trying to get a ticket in for tailgating at 15 mph when some idiot in front slams on his brakes for no reason other than he sees a cruizer.

 

[Agent Blue]

Don't care for tail gaters either. I maintain speed using my left foot to turn on the brake lites. Most get the message. If not it gets slower.
What grinds me is people who pass, cut in front of you, missing my fenders by a couple feet, only to hit the brakes and take the exit. Then the true Nascar driver does this by passing on the far left cutting in front of two lanes of traffic to take the first exit. Apparently fools have little or no common sense.

 

[s219]

It could be worse. You could live in the south where everyone gets in the left lane of a freeway and drives 5-10 under. They also don't have a clue why on and off ramps are long enough to accelerate and decelerate.

You hit the nail on the head. Those are two of the worst things I see here in VA.

I don't care so much about tailgaters -- I let them wear themselves out. But what steams me is when I am hauling a trailer and trying to drive smoothly and maintain speed on hills, etc, only to come up on someone going way under the speed limit for no apparent reason. I always find it odd when, as the obvious slow moving vehicle, I am the one who has to get in the passing lane sometimes.

 

[RaydaKub]

What grinds me is people who pass, cut in front of you, missing my fenders by a couple feet, only to hit the brakes

My dad had a 3/4 Dodge 2wd and pulled a 14' 5th wheel grain trailer. The gross weight at the elevator usually was 27,000 to 29,000lbs. He had a sheriff cut him off just like that to pull him over because the idiot that he was over weight. With 4 axles he could haul 40,000 lbs legally and had weight tickets to prove it. Trouble was that it had rained a lot and the shoulder was soft. He had to walk a 1/2 mile to my uncle's place to get a tow with his tractor. So I guess the location was at least pretty good.

 

[sparc]

And I've noticed an increasing amount of State Troopers, and Sheriff Deputies talking on cell phones when driving..!!

Here police are exempted from the cell phones laws supposedly because they are trained drivers and know how to control their vehicles; except for the trooper driving the Governer on the Garden State Parkway who though not reported to be using a cell phone had some trouble maintaining control of his vehicle (while driving at 90+ MPH) and collided with another vehicle then hit a guard rail. The accident put the Gov and his aide in the hospital as well as the trooper driving.

Jon Corzine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"I'm New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, and I should be dead." - YouTube

 

[3930dave]

I can't recall the name of the official, but in the last year or 2 there was a similar accident in the USA.

Govt Suburban traveling at a very high rate of speed on an Interstate (it sounded like just a Pol in a hurry to get somewhere trivial). I think it was in the North East. Multiple fatalities in the Suburban, including the Pol as I recall.

Entitlement + Immunity = Sub-Optimal Outcomes.

Rgds, D.

 

[Baby Grand]

You hit the nail on the head. Those are two of the worst things I see here in VA.

I don't care so much about tailgaters -- I let them wear themselves out. But what steams me is when I am hauling a trailer and trying to drive smoothly and maintain speed on hills, etc, only to come up on someone going way under the speed limit for no apparent reason. I always find it odd when, as the obvious slow moving vehicle, I am the one who has to get in the passing lane sometimes.

A friend calls those types Flatlanders.